I Am Not My Hair…

…
I am not this skin
I am not your expectations no no
I am not my hair
I ma not this skin
I am a soul that lives within

-India.Arie

This should be my mantra, as I just received the most expensive haircut I have ever payed for, and I am not very happy with it. I am beside myself. Full responsibility is mine. But before I go into this haircut in full, let me share some background here.

My Hair: A Brief Recap of Its Recent History

1993-1997: In high school my dad cut my hair. I parted my hair in the center, and it looked a bit Emelio Estevezish.

1998: My friend Edi told me he could cut hair, and I ended up with a shaved head with little patches everywhere. I buzzed it all off and kept it like that for about a year.

1999-2001: Began actually paying for haircuts which resulted in a spiky fade.

2002-2003: Developed an affinity for anime, grew out my hair all around, and spiked it up like my head was a brunette flame a la Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z.

2003-2006: Went to graduate school, got a job, needed a more “professional” look, went back to the slightly more grown out spiky fade.

2006-February 2009: Discovered that I could get a week or two more out of my haircut by shaping the spikes into a point and passing it off as a semi-fauxhawk.

February 2009-October 2009: Decided to grow out my hair until the end of the summer. Hair evolved from shapeless mass, to hideous helmet, then Tom Hanks’ hair from The DavinciCode, then Uncle Jesse’s hair from the early Full House episodes (It should be noted that this title was given to my hair, it was not my intention), followed by mulletesque wavy hair that poked me in my eyes when I ran, and actually tucked underneath my shirt collar (eew).

A few days ago I decided to actually splurge and go to a fancy hair salon seeing as how I saved roughly $270-$700 dollars by not getting haircuts every two to four weeks over the past nine months (Wow! That is the first time I put that in writing. Insane!), and I had so much hair to work with that I was curious to see what an “expert” might do with my hair.

I sat down in the chair in this fancy salon, told the woman that I trusted her to do whatever she thought would look best so long as she did not give me a mullet, and let her go to work.

Well, I basically left the salon with Demi Moore’s haircut circa 1991, and I don’t know what to do now.

Part of me is sitting with it and allowing myself to be patient; thinking things like: Maybe it will grow out nicely. Maybe if I just comb it differently it won’t look so terrible. Another part of me wants to cut it down and go back to the spiky fauxhawk.

To make matters worse, I keep hearing The Platters singing, I Hunger for Your Touch in my head, and a small part of me expects the ghost of Patrick Swayze to wrap his arms around me as I type this entry. [Not that Patrick Swayze isn’t a handsome guy. But I am happy with my current partner, and a romantic encounter with a specter is not my idea of a good time.]

I think I am going to continue to sit with my haircut. Either it will grow out and become something I can actually tolerate–maybe even enjoy. Or, it will sit atop my dome as a constant reminder that I need to be a less apathetic and more decisive person… and maybe in those dark moments, I will repeat India.Arie’s mantra.